The American founders said that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights—that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They called this a self-evident truth. Eighty-seven years later, Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed this idea on the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg. And in 1963 these same words echoed from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as Martin Luther King, Jr. urged America to fulfill the promise of its founding.
But humans are separated by enormous differences in talent and circumstance. Why would anyone believe that all men are created equal? That all should be free? That all deserve a voice in choosing their leaders? Why would any nation consider this a self-evident truth?
For the millions around the world who have never tasted liberty, the question cries for an answer.
Meet the Experts
William B. Allen
William B. Allen is Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. Allen served as Director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia from June 1998 through August 1999, while on leave from Michigan State. Previously, he served as Dean and Professor at James Madison College at Michigan State University. He is the author of The Federalist Papers: A Commentary and Let the Advice Be Good: A Defense of Madison's Democratic Nationalism. He also has edited several collections, including George Washington: A Collection, The Works of Fisher Ames and The Essential Antifederalist. Allen has been a Fulbright Fellow, a Kellogg National Fellow, and has received the international Prix Montesquieu.
Susan Wise Bauer
Susan Wise Bauer teaches English at the College of William & Mary and is currently working on a four volume series about the history of the world for W. W. Norton. The first book in the series, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome, appeared in 2007 and was described by Publisher's Weekly as "a wonderful starting point for the study of the ancient world." Bauer has published numerous books, including The Well-Educated Mind, The Well-Trained Mind and The Story of the World series. Bauer is also a contributing editor to Books & Culture and a frequent contributor to Christianity Today. She lives in Virginia with her husband and four children.
Alan R. Crippen II
Rev. Alan R. Crippen II is founder and president of the John Jay Institute for Faith, Society and Law. Previously Crippen served for nine years as founding rector of the Witherspoon Fellowship, a leading civic and cultural leadership development program based in Washington, D.C. for college-age students. He also as served as vice-president for policy and academic affairs at Family Research Council, senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and director of development at International Students, Inc. both in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His military service includes platoon and battery command as well as various battalion staff operations and planning positions in the U.S. Army Field Artillery. Crippen is an ordained presbyter in the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) and lives with his wife and five children in Colorado Springs.
Robert P. George
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He specializes in constitutional law, philosophy of law and political philosophy. George is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and formerly served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He was Judicial Fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. He is the author of In Defense of Natural Law, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality, and The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis. He has published numerous scholarly articles and book reviews and has received many hono
Acton Institute
The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty is named after the great English historian, Lord John Acton (1834-1902). He is best known for his famous remark: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Inspired by his work on the relation between liberty and morality, the Acton Institute seeks to articulate a vision of society that is both free and virtuous, the end of which is human flourishing.
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Category: History
Format: DVD (Documentary)
Publisher: Acton Media
Date Published: Oct 01, 2008
Language: English
ISBN: 718122938346
SKU: LT-1147
Dimensions: 5.50 x 7.50 x 0.75 (in)
Weight: 7.10 oz